Letters to the Editor
Strike Week
(Letters on this subject are printed in classorder.)
TO THE EDITOR:
A Wah-Hoo-Wah for the baseball champions, the golf champions, the rowing cup winners, and all the Big Green athletes in spring sports. This is evidence of the Dartmouth spirit we pride ourselves on. And right in the midst of all the dissension over President Nixon's decision on Cambodia.
Why hasn't it been evident to our educated Hanover community and other college areas that President Nixon is about to conduct a massive retreat - perhaps the greatest in all military history - and his military advisers tell him this could be a catastrophe without protecting his rear and his flanks? The problem is to "bring 'em back alive" - isn't it? Isn't the Commander-in-Chief the one to decide how and when to do it?
Letters from undergraduates to alumni on the subject are as presumptuous as alumni writing to undergraduates to get into the political act.
Now is the time for Dartmouth men to unite for the best and long-range interests of the College we love. The number one problem is to support the Alumni Fund - to show ourselves and the world that we will back up the College - now and forever - and leave the political angles to those who know more about them than we do.
I have been an Alumni Fund contributor for over 50 years and I am increasing my gift this year by 33% to show my support of John Kemeny and my pride in having him as President of Dartmouth.
Summit, N.J.
TO THE EDITOR:
The Wall Street Journal of May 15 carried an advertisement which appealed to "businessmen everywhere to write or telegram (sic) their official representatives in Washington to stop the escalation of the War." The ad purported to be sponsored by students and faculty "of the Nation's graduate schools of business." Under the "Faculty" heading it lists the names of seventeen persons indicated as representing Dartmouth. I think that it is fair to assume that they are the names of Tuck School faculty. I wonder if one of them might be a professor of English. If so, he has a little egg on his face. As a matter of semantics, "to write," as quoted above, is, of course, a verb; "telegram" is a noun, incorrectly used as a verb. The war escalation referred to appears to be the Cambodian adventure. I think that it has been demonstrated that, on the basis of food, munitions and other supplies seized, the "invasion" of Cambodia has been worth while, and it could have an appreciable effect on the termination of the activities in South Vietnam.
The Tuck School faculty (if such they are) in sponsoring the ad, display the not unusual arrogance of some professors in forcing their opinions and judgments on others who may have better knowledge and backgrounds to justify contrary conclusions such as, in this case, our "official representatives in Washington."
The Dartmouth faculty, in general, has little to be proud of in the past few years. The banishment of ROTC from the campus has done a disservice to undergraduates and to our country. The service academies cannot provide officers in the numbers needed by the services. Moreover, it seems to me, that the services are better off with an officer group which has had liberal arts educations and is not cast in the rigid molds of the service academies. I feel, too, that the faculty was responsible for the deterioration of the Great Issues course to the extent that the course had to be dropped. I had felt that this course, besides being valuable to the students, was of a type which gave the College considerable prestige. ...
To revert to the Tuck School faculty, it is to be desired that any further inclination to "publish" will take a form which will not lend comfort and encouragement to our country's external enemies.
Lexington, Mass.
TO THE EDITOR:
Having received, unsolicited, a request from one of our confused and immature undergraduates, unknown to me, a request that I write to my Congressional delegation relative to the President's war policy, I have complied as per the enclosure.
Should not the Trustees investigate a College administration which allows students, to traipse off to Washington probably neglecting their studies? This is particularly bad while we are being solicited for the Alumni Fund, which makes their education possible.
Reno, Nev.
TO THE EDITOR:
It was a happy day indeed when I received notice from Hanover that I was to be a member of the Class of 1926.
But it was a very sad day when I received the Bulletin of May 7th from the Office of the Secretary of the College concerning the action taken by the College in protest to the military decision to move into Cambodia in an earnest and intelligent effort to terminate this tragic episode in southeast Asia.
How eroded has become "The Granite of New Hampshire" and how polluted "The Hill Winds of the Still North"!
My congratulations go to the "Strike Back Committee" for its stand against this disgraceful move by the College. It occurs to me that my Alma Mater has become guilty of keeping a disorderly house. Sad to relate. "Lest the old traditions fail."
Francesville, Ind.
TO THE EDITOR:
In response to the bulletin from the Office of the Secretary, dated 7 May 1970:
1. The bulletin was most objective.
2. I agree with the position of the Strike Back Committee.
3. I have the utmost sympathy for the families of the students killed at Kent and for the Guardsmen who felt they had to fire to defend themselves. However, the slain students are not martyrs. They were with the wrong people, doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
4. Based on personal experience as the supervisor of an extensive, government funded, social science research project contracted out to leading universities front coast to coast, I have little confidence in the judgment of academicians coping with non- academic realities.
5. I believe that when Dartmouth depart from the position of the Strike Back Committee it is reentering a wilderness out of which its small voice may not be heard again.
Union, Maine
TO THE EDITOR:
The alumni of Dartmouth College would be well advised to read the text of President Kemeny's broadcast of May 4, 1970. The would find that in addition to making his own political opinions known, he strongly urged the faculty, students, administrate and staff of Dartmouth College to form a political action group. In a far ranging, emotional speech he sympathized with the recent Brewster-Yale-Panther commotion, identified a "constitutional crisis" in the United States, dismissed as unimportant the circumstances leading up to the Kent Stall tragedy and found our American civilization to be "totally intolerable." He deplored poverty, urban blight, racism and pollution, but his main abhorrence was President Nixon's decision to eliminate the Cambodian sanctuaries.
After consulting with members of the administration and faculty and in response to student groups calling for a community acting in unison which would "be more effective in changing national policy than any group could be on its own," President Kemeny urged united action by the entire Dartmouth community and toward this and he made available the time, the facilities, and the name of Dartmouth.
Is the president of a college entitled to use his institution for political purposes My answer is an emphatic NO. The nature of President Kemeny's speech was such as to inflame and polarize political feelings which already existed on campus and which he undoubtedly recognized as consistent with his own. Dr. Kemeny is entitled tote own political opinions but he is not obliged as President of the College to take a public stand on them.
In the long run students will not respect President Kemeny for his action. From their educators they expect an impartial presentation of the facts and a disposition to see both sides of a question. In the president of their college they have a right to expect a certain equanimity, a state of mind not easily swayed by current passions. Political feelings are biased, frustrating and disruptive. They do not belong in an academic world.
President Kemeny was wrong to use his position of leadership in Dartmouth College to foster a situation in which political partisanship can divide not only the students and faculty but also the alumni body. I feel sure that to many of us, young or old, liberal or conservative, his first major act as head of the College brings feelings of dismay.
Manchester, N.H.
TO THE EDITOR:
The May 7, 1970 Bulletin from the office of the Secretary of Dartmouth College surely must be the greatest news to come out of Hanover in at least a generation!
Now, at long last, with the formation of the Continuing Presence in Washington (CPW) equipped even with a computer (!), the entire Dartmouth Community - students, faculty, administration, alumni, parents and friends - has been brought together in a common cause of enormous importance to the College as well as our country.
I believe that CPW means business, as I've already had a letter from an undergraduate telling of plans for a meeting with the Tricounty alumni soon to discuss its plans. I plan to help them in every way possible.
What a wonderful change this is from the dreadful news that came to us a year ago, to the day of the disgraceful confrontation between students and administration to which, you may recall, I objected so vigorously! How wonderful it is that this time the administration supports the students!
Let us hope that CPW, along with many other like-minded organizations, will be able eventually to extricate our country from the dreadful mess that we now find it in, both overseas and at home.
But I hope that CPW will not stop at the de-escalation of the war in Asia and the de-militarization of life at home. It appears to me that CPW is an entirely new - and much needed - educational concept. I would hope that once the immediate goals of CPW have been achieved, that Dartmouth, along with all other schools of higher education, will not revert to a system and a philosophy which condoned, if it indeed did not encourage, a middle-class society steeped (no doubt, quite innocently) in racism, chauvinism and a self-serving yet destructive materialism in the name of religion, patriotism and individualism.
I congratulate all the organizers of CPW, from President Kemeny on down, and will do whatever I can to assure, if possible, the success of their endeavors.
Watchung, N.J.
TO THE EDITOR:
I recently attended a joint alumni-undergraduate meeting, initiated entirely by undergraduate volunteers, to interpret the limited moratorium authorized by the College after the Cambodian incursion and the Kent State killings.
The undergraduates were composed of both those in favor of the moratorium and those opposed; those in favor of the postmoratorium activities, such as community canvassing and Continuing Presence in Washington , and those opposed.
I wish to report to my fellow alumni that the undergraduates addressed their opponents and the alumni in such a manner of dignity, decorum, and intelligence as to make it pellucidly clear that Dartmouth has not faltered in its production of potential leaders of great merit.
The young gentlemen of both schools of thought showed respect for the opinions of each other and for the opinions of the alumni. They stated their own opinions with great sincerity but in moderate manner. They solicited alumni guidance both in college curriculum and in the approach to the political and economic world beyond the campus.
Should we, as alumni, fail to respond with corresponding vigor and courtesy to so gracious an invitation and mutual enterprise, we hardly deserve the name of the "Dartmouth Brotherhood."
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.
TO THE ALUMNI:
You have heard and read much about the May events on campus. I wish you could have shared them: those were great days. After the Cambodian invasion and the killings at Kent State something happened at Dartmouth which may bear witness to a change in the nation. Years of frustration over the war and the neglect of justice and the environment in this country, years of deeply repressed shame over the murder of two Kennedys and Martin Luther King, finally came to an end. An overwhelming majority of students and faculty came together, as never before, and they were not hiding a lack of conviction about America behind a complacent or confused silence or in TV hypnosis.
If you doubt the response at Dartmouth, consider what happened on scores of other campuses. But here the new President, with little to go on other than a sure instinct, rose to lead the College into constructive and educational actions. You have read of our seminars, panels, action groups. Their range was panoramic, all the way from the longtime effects of defoliation in Vietnam (a subject most of us have not wanted to think about), to how to petition and listen to the people of New Hampshire and Vermont (where students learned a valuable simple lesson about haircuts and neckties).
There was no violence, not the least impulse toward violence. The very opposite was true. Not mere "tolerance," that feeble supercilious word, nor ''conciliation," nor "moderation." Those words give no sense of the spirit here. It was a genuine desire to know as much as possible, a mind-expanding urge to reason, an enthusiasm that abandoned slogans and tried to look at military, social, economic, and environmental questions in their full complexity.
After a week there had been words enough. Many students went back to classes, others set out to petition leaders in business, politics, and the professions, and to organize and finance a Continuing Presence in Washington.
Strange and unusual happening on any campus. The 1930's brought forth a new isolationism. Some of you remember President Hopkins' bitter Commencement response to that attitude. The 1940's gave us war, A-Bombs, and President Dickey's important experiment in education, Great issues. The 1950's produced the "silent generation." Who did not complain of that period? Well ... this generation is not "uncommitted." They may be radical, but only in the root sense of that word. In fact they are conservative, in the best American tradition of individual responsibility. But they will be heard.
They are the most honest and inquiring group of students I have ever seen. If they demand that America live up to its ancient promises, shall they be misjudged for that?
In my experience nothing remotely like the spirit of the May events ever swept through here. Had you been here you would have felt it. I think you'd have been proud of these young men, of the faculty — of Dartmouth.
Hanover, N.H.
TO THE EDITOR:
The recent Bulletins on the Colored and Cambodian crises issued by the Office of the Secretary, Dartmouth College, have been extremely interesting.
They do make one wonder who is leading Dartmouth now. If the undergraduates through force and intimidation are teaching the faculty and administration, they are certainly the ones who deserve to be called Professors.
The present administration would appear to be a "me too" rubber stamp - "so glad you thought of it" for any childish thought the students have. If these ideas that are produced by mobs and militants are so tremendous, would it not have been better for the faculty and administration to have introduced them before the students had to riot or use other pressures?
Was there any suspension of classes when Russia invaded Czechoslovakia? It must have been better to sleep through that one, or maybe it did not occur at an opportune time such as a warm spring day. To suggest that the present mistake at Dartmouth has any precedence in 1776 is a great stretch of imagination.
Even though the Vietnam War was probably a mistake initially, I strongly believe President Nixon showed courage in his decision, and only made this decision after careful deliberation. Let us hope that more of the Faculty and Administration at Dartmouth will develop this quality in the future.
Pottersville, N.J.
TO THE EDITOR:
What happened at Dartmouth the week of May 4th is the most inspiring event the College has experienced since the founding. The President and the students deserve warm congratulations. It is sad that it has taken us all so long to recognize the really relevant issues of the American scene.
Potomac, Md.
TO MY ALMA MATER:
If you need money ask your campus radicals and the trustees to pass the hat. Damned if I'm going to use my hard-earned money to subsidize student revolts and use of college funds and influence for political goals.
Raleigh, N.C.
TO THE EDITOR:
No doubt the Great Debate will now begin among the alumni on whether the President acted wisely in calling off classes and sending a lobby to Washington, and I hope he will have the good sense to ignore it and just do what he thinks is right. But should the issue be in some way decided by Alumni response, I would like to add my two cents.
I think, firstly, it was a manly decision - manly in the sense that Dartmouth has always tried to turn out men - too often merely "successful" men - and hopefully in the future, men who will stand up for what is right, regardless of what the crowd yells. I hope that President Kemeny's action will encourage this kind of manliness at Dartmouth.
No doubt some will cry it was a political act and they are being denied their educational contract. But I think it was more an act for a kind of education: to take it out of the books and the classroom and make students try to test their ideals in some kind of action. Sadly, too much American education is all book learning and no action. So let those who support the war go out and speak in favor of it, and let those who side with the Silent Majority go out and tell why people should be Silent. But I commend the idea that an institution of higher learning that is in some way, some small way, supposed to be a guardian of the ideals it discusses in its classrooms, should go out and face an issue that is tearing this country apart.
It is time for the Roman legions to come home, and all the young Romans to transform themselves, for we will never impress the world with anything but the quality of life we achieve here.
Austin, Texas
TO THE EDITOR:
I would like to briefly comment on my reactions to the way in which the Dartmouth faculty and students responded to the current situation in Cambodia and at Kent State University. The course of action taken confirmed my faith and pride in the College that it continues to lead and set an example for the rest of the academic world in responding maturely and objectively to such critical situations. The Bulletin from the Office of the Secretary indicated to me that the lectures and dialogue concerning the current issues and events provided a valuable educational experience for all the Dartmouth Community. Hopefully, the interest and influence of the Dartmouth Community will continue to spread beyond the Upper Connecticut Valley to reach the wider Dartmouth Community of alumni, and positive steps can be taken to improve these current situations of national importance.
Frankfurt, Germany
TO THE EDITOR:
I am writing from the campus of the University of Wisconsin, where the students have recently brought the war home with a vengeance. After the Kent State killings, the Chancellor chose to declare that the University would remain open at all cost. During the following week the ignored and infuriated students wreaked thousands of dollars of revenge on the "establishment." The police, in turn, became increasingly brutal, often beating uninvolved bystanders who were much easier to catch than the real rioters. Then the students escalated: buildings and barricades were flaming throughout the campus area. At the end of the week the rumor was rife that weapons were coming in over the weekend. Only then did the Chancellor, an ex-labor mediator, choose to make some concession to the conscience of the community by declaring the following week a time of "concern and involvement." What irony! The students had been concerned and involved from the beginning.
Because Wisconsin's president has resigned, the Board of Regents is now choosing a new president. I wrote a letter commending President Kemeny to the Board as an example of the involved leadership that every university needs in 1970. Dr. Kemeny's initiative on the evening of May 4. 1970 may well have saved Dartmouth the violence and hatred that have surrounded us here at Wisconsin. Congratulations to the College for choosing a leader rather than a mediator as President.
Madison, Wis.
TO THE EDITOR:
Enclosed is a letter which was composed by the undersigned who are here with me in Bourges, France, on a Foreign Language Program. The thoughts expressed are the results of a group effort.
THE LETTER
We have been trying to follow the recent events in the United States, and especially at Dartmouth. Being physically separated from you, we are obviously not fully informed. But we are deeply concerned and feel the need to express ourselves, if only to clarify our reactions.
The purpose of our life here in Bourges is communication. By this we mean the attempt to overcome artificial cultural barriers and individual inhibitions and prejudices. Our communication here has been bothverbal and non-verbal, and in making theeffort to communicate we have become very aware of our dependence on other people.We have attempted to communicate to eachother our respect for life. We have tried tobe unafraid to admit openly our individualneeds, weaknesses, and fears.
Though greatly grieved by the events inCambodia and in Vietnam, we are not surprised by their continued occurrence. Forthese are not the total embodiment of thewrongs in our society, but symptoms of itsdeeper ills - a lack of compassion and sensitivity- that manifest themselves not onlyin the acts of our nation but in the Dartmouth community as well.
We feel now the need for a moralitywhich goes-beyond the end of an incendiarywar to other pressing needs; a moralitywhich acts on a continuum, not merely aninstant. Such morality must rest on a conceptof community greater than adhesionthrough national need or interest. We seeka community of men who are responsiblefor others and, in the end, to themselves.
The simplicity of this statement has been magnified by its daily reality in Bourges. In our foreign families and adopted community we have recognized something far greater than politic need or academic curiosity. A human element has emerged as more important; and we have taken joy in asserting it in our life here.
The letter is signed by Professor Rassias and23 Dartmouth undergraduates.
TO THE EDITOR:
For several years I have been thankful that the students of our country have worked so hard to expose the lies and brutality of our foreign policy. With President Nixon's recent invasion of Cambodia the open dissent has spread, and now the nation owes a debt of gratitude to the college administrators too. The current academic year has been a difficult one for universities which have become too closely aligned with state and federal policies, but colleges like Dartmouth will emerge stronger by being able to develop a unified, concerned community. My sincere thanks to students, faculty, and President Kemeny.
Saxtons River, Vt.
Alumni College Lectures
TO THE EDITOR:
We wish to thank you for publishing the 1969 Alumni College lectures and hope you will make it an annual feature. There are many of us who would attend the Alumni College if we could. The chance to read these lectures is next best to being in attendance.
Lakeland, Fla.
TO THE EDITOR:
I want to congratulate you on doing a good job in general, and particularly on the publication of 20th Century Reflections.
I refer specifically to the 1969 Alumni College Lectures, Numbers 2 and 3, by Professors James W. Fernandez and William W. Ballard. Both impressed me as examples of very brilliant thinking.
In these disturbing times, Dartmouth men have reason to be proud of their College and its leadership.
For the hell of it, I am enclosing some slightly unorthodox thoughts to toss into the seething caldron of conflicting ideas which confront us:
Let's look at it this way: just who and what do we humans think we are, anyway? In the vastness of the Universe the whole human species is so infinitely small that were it completely obliterated, the fact would scarcely be noticed.
However, we are blessed with phenomenal potentialities, both physical and spiritual, and we are blessed with an infinitely beautiful and bountiful planet (although tiny), on which existence could be very beautiful. And what an unholy mess we are making of it!
Somewhere in the great Beyond, there must be a species of living creatures where Peace, Contentment and Wisdom exist; where racial hatreds, greed for power, wars, murder and destruction from the air, starvation and cruelties are unknown. Possibly Shakespeare's Puck was of such a species, as he looked us over and remarked "What fools these mortals be!"
Greenville, N.H.
TO THE EDITOR:
I have just finished reading the reprint of Prof. Ballard's lecture for last year's Alumni College in the March issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE which I received last week — it takes a while for land mail to get here from Hanover.
I just want you to know that I think you are providing a great service by publishing these lectures. Because my parents attended Alumni College I have a personal interest in what they discussed and were exposed to during these two weeks in August. Beyond this, I think it provides alumni with an idea of what Alumni College is like or what the potential is for President Kemeny's pet project of alumni education. The lectures are articulate statements by some of Dartmouth's finest professors of issues which should be of central concern to all alumni. By featuring lectures by specialists in different academic areas, you are offering an in-depth analysis that is rarely available in today's media while at the same time demonstrating the complexity and all- encompassing nature of mankind's present dilemmas.
Even though I graduated from Tuck last June I sincerely welcome this opportunity for a little postgraduate education - I never took an anthropology course, and only had Professor Ballard part of a term in Science 8 - and intellectual stimulation.
Tacna, Peru
A Gap
TO THE EDITOR:
There's a little more than just a generation gap at Dartmouth, a gap between the College and its alumni, and it's getting wider. A little trickle started when the College chose to honor a great Dartmouth man with a building that was so bad aesthetically that it deserved to be put in southern California or Florida, not on a charming old New England campus with a Dartmouth Hall and Baker Library. More changes came but the last and greatest one is the changing of the old school for Indians founded by one Eleazar Wheelock into a coed institution.
Alumnus Kenneth Andler put it bluntly and succinctly. "It just won't be Dartmouth College anymore."
Palm Beach, Fla.
